


Wednesday’s Shadow: Five Jobs that Rusty Ryan Never Had, Except Maybe He Did

by shadesofbrixton



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Crossdressing, Heists, M/M, Movie: Ocean's Eleven, Rusty is always eating, five things trope, inappropriate use of beanbags, we finish each other's sandwiches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22391203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofbrixton/pseuds/shadesofbrixton
Summary: Five jobs that Danny and Rusty pull at some point in their professional relationship.
Relationships: Danny Ocean/Rusty Ryan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 93





	Wednesday’s Shadow: Five Jobs that Rusty Ryan Never Had, Except Maybe He Did

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on LiveJournal in 2005, moving over to AO3 for posterity.

**i.**

“I’m not sure I understand,” Danny is saying, and Rusty wants to hit him in the face.

Instead, he reaches up and adjusts his top hat, and then reaches down and adjusts his Speedo. Rusty likes his body, but he hates shaving it. He hates waxing it even more, but there’s really nothing for it. Rusty’s seen what the hairy ones look like, and how they pull guys who look like his mom would if she were a guy, and also Italian and sixty pounds overweight. So he sucks it up and goes in for the Brazilian once a week.

“I’m just not sure what sort of formal event would allow a Speedo, under normal circumstances.”

“Shut up,” Rusty says, the cadence of his voice indicating that it’s more of a suggestion than a command. He’s still distracted by the Speedo, glad it isn’t a g-string for once, and points. “Hand me the bow tie.”

Danny reaches for it, his eyes crinkling as he laughs around his cigarette, and steps close to fix the tie around Rusty’s bare throat himself.

“Seriously,” Rusty deadpans. “Shut up.”

“Nuh-uh,” Danny says, still grinning. Rusty reaches up and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, drags on it, and refuses to give it back. This is not the first time they have run this con, but Rusty always hopes it will be their last.

“You want the – ”

“No.” Rusty won’t even look up to see the gel-cup that Danny holds between thumb and forefinger, the rest of Danny’s digits splayed as if he’s at a fine English tea.

“Why not?”

He looks up. “Why _not_? Stuffing – ”

“You should. It’s – ”

He looks down again, fiddles with a loose piece of thread on the tiny bathing suit. Frowns, tugs at it. “Not after the last time.”

“Ah.” Danny has the grace to look mildly abashed, and steals the cigarette back. “Look, if I’d known that it was going to be – ”

“Let’s not talk about it.” Rusty uses that suggesting tone again, and pulls on the white gloves.” “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The music thuds up through the floor, pounds into Rusty’s feet, just a breath too slow to match his heart rate. Danny’s face is all business. Sort of.

“Ready?” he asks, the cigarette tucked into one corner of his mouth, and he hands over the black, white-tipped cane that completes Danny’s costume. He is also supposed to wear a faux-silk sash that reads “Mr. Windsor,” but it’s been ripped too many times, and he burned it with relish in the parking lot after its last performance.

“Ready,” Rusty confirms, and glances at the cigarette. Danny obligingly holds it to Rusty’s lips for a last drag, and then grinds it out under his shoe. “Ready,” Rusty says again, and means it this time.

The crowd is growing louder. “Good,” Danny says, and picks up the large red tricycle by the handlebars, plastic streamers fluttering in the breeze of the dressing room.

It has a large horn on the front.

They regard one another, apprehension written in both of their over-casual stances, and they look at the trike.

“Alright,” Danny says finally.

“Yeah,” Rusty says, and they go out.

**ii.**

Rusty is trying to find his place in _Corset Diaries_ when the knock comes. He doesn’t particularly care for the book, but he doesn’t want to disappoint Ms. Gonzalez, or her daughter, who sends the fantastic snickerdoodles every Tuesday. He’s been working with the Gonzalez family for almost four weeks, which is pretty long for him, but he just can’t seem to give up those damn cookies.

The knock is unexpected and impatient, but Rusty dutifully gets up and fastens the cuffs of his shirt to hide his tattoo – no visible tattoos is the rule of employment, which Rusty finds rather extensively ironic. He thinks that it must be the nurse, come early with the medication. Ms. Gonzalez is asleep in her chair, an afghan full of holes draped over one knee, and she doesn’t rouse at the sound.

But when Rusty opens the door, no one is there. Confused, he shuts it and turns away, and the knock comes again – from the window. He starts to get an idea of what it is that’s going on here, pulls back the dark shades, and finds Danny’s grinning face just outside the window. Danny gives him a jaunty wave and mimes the opening of a window.

Rusty barely cracks it. “What are you doing here,” he hisses, voice low. He still has the book clutched in one hand, and Danny’s eyes go to it and then back up to his face, amused.

“I came to rescue you,” Danny says reasonably. “Or to help you carry out the TV.”

“Damn, D…” He glances over his shoulder to check on Mrs. Gonzalez. She grunts and turns in her sleep, and Rusty lowers his voice again. “Danny, I’m trying to get something done here, would you please leave this to me for once?”

“Nah,” Danny says, slaps him on the back and pulls the book out of his hand. He considers the back for a minute, and makes an interested gesture with his eyebrows. Then he shakes himself clear of the book, tosses it onto the table behind Rusty, and grins at the other man. “Look, I’ve got a gig. You in, or out?”

Rusty doesn’t even hesitate. “What’s the game?”

“You’re in, if you ask.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Then you’re in.”

“After I finish this,” Rusty insists. He doesn’t like to leave things half completed – it’s sloppy, and he can’t afford sloppy.

Danny looks pointedly at the gold name tag pinned onto Rusty’s shirt – it has massive orchids and birds of paradise all over it. The shirt, not the name tag. The name tag reads: _Daniel Ocean – Reader for the Blind_. “Oh,” Danny says. “I’d say you’re finished.”

Rusty looks down at the name tag in a way he knows makes it look like his neck has eaten his chin, and then back up at Danny. “Come on,” he says, and the way he talks, he’d be cracking his gum if he had any. “It’s just a little fun.”

“You want to grab the jewelry, or should I?” Danny’s voice is smoky-low, and although his head hasn’t changed direction at all, Rusty can guess his eyes have gone over to Ms. Gonzalez.

“You get it,” he says, and steps back from the window to let Danny in. “I’ll get the cookies.”

Danny rolls his eyes, but he eats more than his half in the convertible on the way to New Jersey.

Rusty drives. Just like always.

**iii.**

Danny is squinting at him through his sunglasses – Rusty can tell from the tone of his voice. “Who the hell gave you goats?”

Rusty considers denying the existence of said goats. Except that Danny has found him in the field, propped up against a tree, the Oregon sun cutting through the early morning mist, and there is a goat curled up against his side. It bleats at Danny, and then starts chewing on Rusty’s pants. He bops it between the horns, and it gives a frustrated sound, and starts chewing again. Then Rusty considers not answering. What he ends up saying, though, is: “I know a guy.”

Danny is laughing now, but not really at him. Only partly. “You always know a guy.”

This is true. Rusty does always know a guy.

Danny looks down at his feet, his hands in his pockets, and rocks far enough back on his heels that the toes of his shoes come up out of the damp grass. “You know a guy who can get goat shit off of a pair of Lobb loafers?”

“Actually.” Rusty holds out his hand to be pulled up, a tendril of black ink curling down onto his thumb. Danny takes his hand and rotates it, examining the tattoo before he pulls. Rusty brushes his pants off after he’s stood, and the goat stands as well, bell on its collar rattling dully. “Yeah, I do.”

**iv.**

The liquid eyeliner won’t go on straight, so he decides to stick with the pencil tonight. The trouble is that Rusty’s always been able to get his right eye done, but then he has to switch hands and his left hand just isn’t steady enough to spread the liquid in a smooth line over his eyelid. So he goes with the pencil. It doesn’t feel cool and gooey against his skin, like the liquid does, but it creates a smokier effect – not as sharp. It gives him bedroom eyes.

Rusty _always_ has bedroom eyes.

The lipstick is easy, he’s gotten used to that – and the rouge and the scarf and the gloves and the pearls and even, to a certain extent, the heels.

What he can’t really get used to is the dress.

“This is ridiculous,” he tells Danny for the fourth time, turning his head over his shoulder to examine his posterior in the mirror. He wiggles his ass a little, frowns, and then clenches. It makes his butt go up.

“You look fine,” Danny tells him mildly, paging through a trashy gossip magazine that has been left behind by one of the other dancers.

“I wouldn’t wear this even if I _was_ a girl,” Danny tells him. “Just so that’s clear.”

“Crystal,” Danny says, and turns the page.

It’s lighter than lime green, but not light enough to be pastel, and it’s covered – positively _covered_ \- in sequins. The neckline is high, a requirement for a man of Rusty’s occupation, but the back stoops low, exposing the curve of his spine, almost to the swell of his ass. A slit up each side is the reason this dress has been chosen - Rusty’s going to have to run right after his performance ends, literally run, and he needs something he’s going to be able to get around in. Danny promises him pants as soon as they get to the hired car, but Rusty won’t rely on it.

He sighs in resignation, looks longingly at the liquid eyeliner, and hikes up the halves of the skirt to put one of his legs on the chair. With the stiletto heel on, he’s far taller than he needs to be, but the shoes accentuate his calves. His calves, he has been informed by the Emcee, are what the other dancers like to call a ‘problem area’.

Rusty points out that the area below the groin, the bulge that gives away the dancers’ game, is probably a more important ‘problem area’ than having mannish calves.

The Emcee doesn’t like him very much.

“Toss over that tape?” he flicks his wrist in the direction of the coiled white tape, the bangles on his wrist clacking and tinkling together.

Danny looks up this time, the complete absence of alarm in his voice all the warning that Rusty needs. “You’re taping it down?”

“Of course I’m taping it down. I’m going to have to run. Do you know how much it hurts to have your cock flapping against sequins? Of course I’m taping it down.”

Danny grins that toothy grin at him and closes the magazine. He picks up the tape. “Want some help?”

Rusty hikes the skirt up farther.

**v.**

Cleaning up finger paint is an exercise in futility. Nevertheless, Rusty won’t go home until the classroom has been put back in order, and that includes vacuuming under the sand table and getting the FILO clay off of the inside of the stove. When he turns away from the table to throw away the newspapers, the doorway is empty. When he turns back, Danny is leaning against the threshold like he’s waiting to pick up his kid.

“You have got,” he enunciates clearly, and pauses and rubs at his eyes and makes a dramatic hand gesture, “to be kidding me.” He’s got expensive sunglasses pushed up on his head, and he’s wearing a suit, but Rusty can’t figure out what kind from this far away.

“A lot of rich moms, you know,” is all Rusty says, wringing out a sponge over the sink against the far wall. He comes back over to the finger painting table and starts to scrub at the non-toxic paint.

Danny comes closer, after seeing that it does, indeed, wash off. “I bet you’re just in it for the snack time.”

“Those graham crackers, my God,” Rusty agrees. “We’ve been stealing the wrong stuff.”

Danny looks like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, which is a weird look on Danny, so Rusty points him over to the play corner and tells him to start putting toys on the shelf. The sooner he’s done, the sooner he can fold up the Phonics posters and leave.

“You have to admit, though,” Danny says.

“Yeah, alright.”

“And I bet you like juice boxes.”

“Those straws can be damn tricky.”

“I think that’s why you’re just supposed to cut the boxes open with scissors.” Danny has a plastic telephone in his hand, the kind that makes different noises depending on which buttons you push. He can’t find a place for it, so he shoves it under a sleeping mat.

Rusty finishes the scrubdown and comes over to the play corner, sinks down into the pink bean bag near the block box, and rests his arms on his knees. “Siddown, Danny, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“What’s on my mind is that if I sit in one of those things, I might never get up.” He’s sitting anyway, in stages – first one knee to the ground and then a hand on his leg, lowering him, and maneuvering back into the chair.

“Oh, you’ll get up,” Rusty promises him. “Katey peed in that one.”

“You’re bluffing.” Danny doesn’t sound worried, but he doesn’t exactly sound not worried, either.

“Am I? You could get up and smell it, if you wan – ”

Danny reaches forward with a hand, grabs him by the back of the shirt, and hauls him forward into a kiss. It tastes good, like cigarettes and expensive salads and apple juice and Play-Doh. Rusty kisses him back, feeling dirty doing this in a bean bag chair but not really caring.

“That’s what was on your mind?” he says after Danny lets him go – lets him back off a few inches; he doesn’t really let go of his hair altogether. Not that Rusty really wants to pull away.

“I missed you.” It has that sort of honest, plaintive note in it that lets him know that Danny is lying. Big time.

“Did you,” he says.

“Yeah,” Danny says.

They stare at one another.

The plastic of the bean bag chairs squeak.

“Alright, fine,” Danny says. “There’s a job.”

Rusty grins. “St. Louis?” Danny doesn’t ask how Rusty knew, so Rusty tells him anyway. “I heard you got blueprints on a riverboat.”

“You heard right,” Danny tells him, and lets go of his hair. “You ever hijacked anything before?”

“Just the camel thing.”

“I heard that went well.”

“You heard right,” Rusty echoes back at him, with a brief flick of his index finger. “I could probably do a boat.”

Danny regards him with something like respect, but Rusty doesn’t have much use for that. “Well,” Danny says. “Alright, then.”


End file.
